


Dead Things

by Elektra Pendragon (elekdragon)



Category: Secret Circle - L. J. Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, M/M, Sibling Incest, Twincest, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-18
Updated: 2006-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:43:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elekdragon/pseuds/Elektra%20Pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zombies come to New Salem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Things

**Author's Note:**

> Randomly, I had this thought that if there was ever a zombie invasion, Chris and Doug would be in their element. Out of that, a story emerged. Special thanks and much love to Red for the beta. It's good to have a friend who knows the Secret Circle series AND likes zombies.

When the dead first began to walk, the Outsiders of New Salem blamed the witches. It was something unnatural, unexplained, and of course they lashed out. In the early days, the panicked mob swept through Crowhaven Road. Most of the parents who refused to remember being witches were burned like them. Not even the crones were spared a bullet and a match. The Club went into hiding because magic was useless against such insanity.

But it wasn't just the Club's dead, it was all dead--all the dead not rotted too far to rise and kill. And when the Outsiders began to fall and then rise again, the mob thinned and a new panicked insanity took hold of the island.

Cassie, Diana, Faye... they fought with what magic they could find, with the willfulness and power of the Old Tools, but this was something beyond their abilities. They could defeat Black John, a ghoul in his own right, but nothing could stop the hungry, stinking hoards. Nothing but a bullet, or if you were unlucky, a knife.

Chris and Doug had seen the movies, played the video games, and, finally, they were in their element. They had snuck out that first night of hiding and brought back guns, pipe bombs, whatever. And though reluctant at first, everyone learned to use them. Or they died.

Sean was the first to die. No one was surprised, if they ever dared to ask themselves. They did their best to protect him. When the creatures found their final hiding place, Sean just froze up, even as the first teeth sank into his skin. He didn't scream until a hand was slicing into his stomach, pulling out long, looping innards. Doug had turned in time to shoot him in the head and end it before they fled.

The Club split up--there were too many of them to hide if they were together--and they planned to meet up in the mainland. Save as many as you can, Diana made them promise, but the twins soon learned that others were a liability. They were slow, noisy, and almost always already dying. Chris and Doug were fast, silent, synchronized; nearly one person as they slept and ate and fought side by side in perfect unison. They were each other's only companion and comfort amid the horror. All they needed were each other, their Book of Shadows, and their guns.

Coming across the living became more and more rare, until they were truly alone.

The Book was heavy, but it proved invaluable. Never really paying attention to their power before, the boys learned on the road in the thick of surviving how to be true witches. They learned how to light a fire when the matches got wet (Chris dropped them) and how to clot and heal wounds (when Doug fell down the stairs) and how to hide in plain sight and sleep like the dead and pull strength from the earth and air when they were exhausted and running, running, always running.

Eventually, they made it to the mainland. They found shelter and supplies where they could, changing hiding places often enough so the creatures couldn't find them and mob. And they waited for Cassie and the Club to find them. They waited for a long time.

***

Two months passed, and while the stench was horrible, the hoards were hardly thinned. They seemed to reach a state of suspended rot, the decay slowing as they shuffled and moaned through the streets. It was easier to outrun them, but the twins could never truly relax. There was always that surprise, that fresh dead, who could move almost as fast as the living.

They were on the outskirts of a town when they found a new place to hide for a few days. Controlled access community, chained fence, civilian barricades, and pre-installed barred windows; they could hole up for a few days, at least, after cleaning it out. They climbed the fence and stayed to the shadows. Chris boosted Doug up to the fire escape and was pulled up after him. The dead seemed to be absent in the courtyard, but they could hear them moaning and pounding on the inside.

Doug took out the one in the corridor as they slipped inside the second floor landing. The rows of rooms were closed and most likely locked. The creatures never seemed to be able to figure out things like opening doors, but it didn't hurt to be careful. They'd sweep the building, clear out what they had to, and be safe for a few days at least. The outside fence would protect them from a large mob, should they find them--and they always did--but they had several options for escape. They'd leave before it got too dangerous, though. They always did.

They shot three more in the halls as they swept the open corridors and floors. They were in the basement when they found the large gas generator, fully stocked, capable of a week or two of power. Maybe more, if they found more fuel, used it wisely. Then they started, apartment by apartment, floor by floor, cleaning out the dead. It used up ammunition, but one thing they learned early on was that in America, there was a gunshop on every corner, and in any given residence they'd find more guns and more bullets. It was easier to reload than to find unspoiled food these days. It was a small price for a few days of safety.

The complex was fairly empty of creatures, compared to some places. Maybe they cleaned out in the early days. Maybe they were locked up too well to get out. A place this expensive, this new... maybe they just hadn't been opened long enough to have residents. It was an easy sweep--kick down the door, shoot anything that moved, check the corners and rooms for anything hiding, move to the next. The place even had clean water, served from a resident's elaborate filter system.

Perfect.

They were tired, but almost done, when they heard the noise. A noise like they hadn't heard in a long time. It was like a cat's call, high-pitched, eerie. They had to eat the last familiar they'd tried to keep-- a rabbit. But a cat could hunt for itself, and scout for them. Even Faye had taken her cats with her when they'd hid. Cats were tools. It could make them stronger.

Chris lead the way, carefully stepping through the mess of the rooms towards the locked bedroom. Doug rattled the doorknob to attract any zombies that might be in there towards the door. The noise got a little louder, but no moans, no mindless thudding of a barely animate corpse slamming into the walls.

Doug kicked, Chris swept. The place was empty, except for boxes and items piled haphazardly. It looked like the former occupants were moving, or hoarding. Perhaps even redesigning the room. They didn't lower their guns as they stepped around the piles of clutter. The noise was definitely coming from the apartment, but they couldn't see it. It was something like a catcall, but not quite. There was something off about it--but then there was something off about everything these days.

When the room was clear, they focused on the closed closet door. Chris took one side, Doug the other, ready for anything. They moved in perfect sync, with one mind.

Then Chris did something unexpected.

The catcall warbled mournfully, and without thinking Chris gave a soft "here kitty-kitty" of encouragement. Doug glared at him, but the noise seemed to pause, listen. There was a soft thump, a scratch.

Doug rattled the knob, but the door was locked from the inside. It should have been a warning. Chris stepped back and kicked it open.

A child's doll fell out of a rotted hand, giving out a final muted, mournful cry of Momma! before a boot fell on it. Chris shot first into the darkness, taking out the creature, but more tumbled out of the seemingly endless darkness. The muzzle flash glared against tile, illuminating a horror filled bathroom, emptying out into the bedroom in a tidal wave of death.

They shot quickly, efficiently, honed from days and nights of practice even before they knew that zombies were real. Chris wasn't sure what happened after that. At moments of fighting, he always went to that place of total concentration, where it was like a video game--he was just getting points. Nothing else existed but the trigger under his finger. In the end, the zombies were dead, and he and Doug were safe. That was what mattered.

But it was wrong. Doug was cursing and yelling and shooting into a body already in sludging pieces at his feet. When he ran out of bullets, he kicked and screamed until his voice was hoarse and finally Chris got the gun out of his hand.

It came away wetly, and left fresh, glistening, cranberry blood on his hands. The wound on his arm was small, but even just glancing at it, they knew it was enough.

Chris dragged a still cursing Doug from the room and into the empty kitchen. His pistol never left his hand as he cleared the table and boosted his brother up. His fingers moved without thinking--they had practiced this, they had prepared, back when they were still with the Club, back when they were looking for a cure, or a way to fight back. They'd never dared to try it before, saving the powerful magic for if--when--they'd need it most. It had to work. The two of them, they were strong, even without the others. They grew stronger by the day. Chris splashed the wound with water, crushed the herbs into it as Doug cried out in harsh pain. The herbs sputtered with flame as he wrapped his hand around the wound, putting his whole being into pushing that power into Doug.

Chris pulled Doug's head to his, his gun pressing against the back of his brother's head as he held him. He wouldn't let go of either of them. "You have to concentrate. We have to do this together. We have to be strong. Stay with me. It's not too late." His other hand squeezed Doug's arm, feeling the burn in his own veins as the herbs sizzled around the infected flesh. "Stay with me."

Staring into eyes that were his own, they concentrated, repeating the words that made real the desire. 'To burn the soul clean,' the entry had read. Cassie has explained that it meant to clean out disease.

It had to.

Doug shuddered, then turned his head to vomit black fluid across the floor. Then he passed out.

***

Chris crouched on the floor, watching his brother, holding the gun close. Doug moaned and sometimes threw up more of the fluid over the side of the table, but he didn't wheeze and his skin didn't turn that blue-grey tone of death they knew all too well. His skin was pink-red and hot, like he was battling a fever. Chris knew he should be sweeping the last apartments on the floor, or stoking up the generator in preparation of the night, but he just sat and watched, afraid to leave for a moment, for a second.

/not him. not my brother. not Doug./

*He* had broken the silence, the perfect communication. That was their edge, the thing that helped them to survive. They were quieter than the dead, faster, smarter. They were like the same person in two places at once. Always someone there to watch his back.

And now half of him was dying.

Chris's own internal clock knew how much time it took a human to become one of those things, even after a small bite. And when they'd past that threshold and Doug was still shuddering and vomiting, he held some hope. It was enough to keep him from shooting and ending it already. Just that little bit of hope.

Finally, the vomiting subsided into the occasional liquid cough. Chris ventured near, his gun ready just in case. Did the infection win, or the magic? No other zombie had that black bile, at least not until it was a couple weeks dead...

Clear blue-green eyes looked up into his. Doug looked miserable, but he smiled up into his brother's face. He asked for a drink, and rinsed his mouth and then Chris was hugging him close.

They had won.

***

The generator worked. There were only a few last zombies to dispatch before they were able to settle down. Doug was weak, and Chris did most of the heavy work, but he wouldn't let his brother be alone. There was an empty apartment on the second floor, probably a show model, that they turned into their headquarters. Chris carefully covered all the windows and doors and vents and turned off the electronics in the other apartments before they dared to turn on any lights. They didn't really sleep that first night, but lay side by side on the clean carpet, staring up into the artificial light as moans filtered in from the outside.

They performed the spell again in the morning, just in case, but the burn wasn't as great and Doug passed out for the whole day. Chris sat beside him the whole time, feeding him sips of water and cleaning away the black fluid as it dribbled from his mouth. When Doug woke up, they decided not to try it again for a while.

***

The hot shower was just as they remembered it--like rain, but softer and warm. A few buildings still had water, and they'd try to clean up where they could, but it had been a long, long time since they'd been really clean. Chris held Doug under the stream and carefully soaped the grime off his body before cleaning himself. They wasted a lot of water and energy, but it was worth it to be truly clean for once.

They'd cut their long hair weeks ago, when they had the horror of watching a young woman's skin ripped off when a zombie grabbed her hair, and after toweling his brother dry Chris set to work trimming it short again. He snipped until he couldn't get a good hold of Doug's head, then cut his own the same length.

They spent a few days quietly recovering, Chris sleeping when Doug slept, eating when he did, resting against his side and trying not to look at the wound that refused to close despite all the spells in the book.

***

Doug was getting stronger by the day, nibbling food and sipping water on his own, reading aloud as they tried to figure out what the old words meant together, even scrubbing Chris's back in their next shower. After a week, Chris asked if they should be scouting a new place. Doug said that Cassie would be able to find them easier if they stayed. The zombies were ignoring them, and they were safe for now. Chris believed him.

Doug was well enough to even trounce Chris in the old video game console they found. After killing real zombies, Pong was exciting as hell.

Sure, Doug was slow to speak, and the circles under his eyes were getting darker--but he was okay. Chris was sure he looked the same if he glanced in a mirror. They slept on the floor together, Chris with his head to Doug's heart, reassuring in its steadiness. They were okay.

***

Doug was toweling off his face after a shower when he cursed in pain, jerking away to lean into the wall heavily, panting into the towel wrapped around his face. Chris thought Doug would never let him see, even after coaxing and petting and running to get the Book. But Doug slowly moved the towel from his face, gingerly leaning over it as thick-flowing blood dripped onto the soggy fibers.

The skin of his top lip was split in half, the edges ripped like a ripe fruit revealing a pulpy red center all the way up to the flare of his nostrils. His eyes shimmered at Chris in the shadows.

Chris rinsed the wound, and whispered words from the Book over them as he slowly, carefully, sewed it together again. The black stitches ran zigzag and crooked, but they worked like shoelaces to hold it together so it could heal.

It hurt to smile, but Doug showed his teeth in reassurance. Doug was okay.

***

It had been a long time, and Chris needed it. It'd been... forever. Since before they had found this place. He couldn't wait anymore. As they lay down on the carpet, staring up at the burning light, he reached out, touching Doug's chest. Doug knew what he wanted. Chris didn't need to ask or speak as Doug pulled him on top. He flashed his broken smile, half-closed his eyes as he apologized for not kissing. Chris made it up by brushing his lips over every inch of flesh, slick and mobile over his brother's body. He didn't mention the smell, the way the rot-stench clung to his skin, knowing he probably smelled the same. Everything did, even in the cool damp of fall.

He ran his hands over the angles of Doug's body, feeling the thin skin over his ribs, carefully tracing the bones on his hips. He knew that he was just as sharp. He ate when Doug ate, and Doug wasn't very hungry anymore.

He was careful, rocking slowly against the bowl of Doug's stomach, afraid that his too sharp bones would cut through too thin skin and leave them as nothing more than the creatures that shuffled through the darkness. Doug pushed his fingers against his spine, urging him on as he hardly moved beneath him. Grimacing that ragged smile that had suddenly and terribly marked them different.

Chris stared into blue-green eyes, concentrating on them and blocking out the horrible images. For just now, it was the two of them again. One body. One soul.

The old words came to his mouth as he shuddered against Doug, whispered like a prayer to burn the soul clean.

/Stay with me./

***

It seemed to Chris that if they just waited until the first snowfall, the dead would all freeze. They don't produce body heat; they don't have the sense to find a place to hole up. They'd be frozen in the heavy New England snow, and he and Doug could just dance through the bodies and find Cassie and Nick and everyone.

Doug seemed to agree, from the soft nodding of his head on Chris's shoulder.

And so, Chris didn't ask again when they would move on.

Thank the goddesses for SUVs and attached garages. And for paranoia. The generator lasted far longer than either of them hoped, even with using it sparingly. What unspoiled food there lasted even longer, as neither of them ate much anymore.

They languished in the sweet coolness of Fall, bristling like cats waiting for the first snow.

***

The moans would rise on the winds sometimes, the heavy mournfulness grating on Chris's nerves until only Doug's heavy hands on his ears and cool forehead pressed to his drowned out any sound.

Hands like tree branches in the storm. The patter of rotted flesh breaking and falling. Bones like hail. None of it existed as lightning flashed against the sky, and Doug held him close.

Just the two of them.

***

Doug started walking around with his gun glued to his hand. They never let their weapons lay far from their reach, but Chris couldn't reach for him without the feel of steel against his skin, couldn't look at Doug without an answering steel gleam in the darkness.

He didn't meet Chris's eyes much anymore. He stared at the covered windows, far into the west.

"Can you feel Cassie?" Chris whispered once.

"...something," Doug answered, soft through torn lips.

So Chris started standing watch too, until he memorized the patterns of the fabric covering the window.

It would snow soon. They were both cold.

***

Doug was pulling down the coverings on the windows. Slanted light streamed in, showing a clear blue-grey sky, not a hint of snow clouds. The ever-present gun glittered in his hand like ice. Chris lifted his head from the carpet, yawning and shading his eyes. He asked what was going on, and Doug just motioned him close. Chris looked out.

The crowd moved like waves, breaking against the sides of the building, pushing and moaning with a unknowable cry of hunger. So loud. Stretching so far.

"They've come for us," Chris whispered.

Doug looked over at him with sad eyes. "They've come for you."

Chris stepped back, not wanting to look anymore, not at the shadow of his brother against the window, not at the memories of all who'd passed before who were now screaming for their blood.

His blood.

Doug's hand was cool on the back of his neck, the gun nudging his skin. "Stay with me."

"Always," was the only answer.

Doug leaned forward, until only his green-blue eyes were there, familiar, warm, and okay. Doug was okay.

He heard a flicker of a lighter, striking and failing and striking again. He could feel the bite of metal against his skin. Smell gasoline on Doug's clothes. The carefully sewn lip scratched against Chris's, so he leaned forward, into it, for one last time. One last kiss.

Doug wasn't okay.

Neither was Chris.

And Cassie wasn't coming for them.

"Burn the soul clean," Chris whispered. Doug nodded, holding him tighter.

The lighter caught. The trigger pulled back.

It wasn't like a video game.


End file.
